PLATFORMED SEX LIVES

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Sundén ◽  
Katrin Tiidenberg ◽  
Susanna Paasonen
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Sexual Expression ◽  
Baltic Region ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Sexual Cultures

This panel builds on a recently funded research project on the geopolitics of digital sexual cultures in Estonia, Sweden, and Finland (2020-2022) investigating three local online platforms devoted to communities around nudity and kink: iha.ee, darkside.se, and alastonsuomi.com. Our case studies are in a sense “edge cases” which partly move within sexual margins, making space for alternate understandings of platform sociability. Contra to the current de-platforming of sex, our case-studies foreground sex as the dynamics that bind users to the sites and fuel diverse engagements between them. The papers are work in progress and provide initial platform analyses inspired by the walkthrough method (Light et al. 2018) and the notion of platforms as microsystems (van Dijck 2013). We focus on platform affordances and governance in terms of gender and sexuality; acceptable behavior and sexual practices; and public visibility and privacy. This opens up three important discussions with relevance to the AoIR community: (1) how digital platforms shape and constrain sexual expression at a political moment when the sexual dimensions of life are increasingly pushed out of public view; (2) how these local platforms, as notable arenas for sexual expression, contribute to sexual cultures within the Nordic and Baltic region; and (3) how our examples, when understood as social media platforms, can help to push understandings of what social media are, how they operate, and what kind of sociability they allow for. The panel opens up a discussion of how sex matters in social media, how it is valued and communicated.

scholarly journals SPACE, PLACE AND LOCATION IN SEXUAL SOCIAL MEDIA

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jenny Sundén ◽  
Katrin Tiidenberg ◽  
Susanna Paasonen ◽  
Maria Vihlman
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Sexual Practices ◽  
Sexual Expression ◽  
Sexual Content ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Sexual Cultures ◽  
Sexual Play ◽  
The One ◽  
Group Sex ◽  
Physical Spaces

Contributing to the swiftly emerging field of the geographies of digital sexualities, this panel explores the geosocial and geopolitical dimensions of digital sexual cultures by zooming in on the connections between sexual practices, geographic imaginaries, and locally embedded social media platforms devoted to sexual expression. Building on case studies of an Estonian platform used primarily by those interested in group sex (LC, est. 2018), a Swedish platform preferred by BDSM practitioners (Darkside.se, est. 2003), and a Finnish platform for nude self-expression (Alastonsuomi.com, est. 2007) we show how these platforms contribute to and shape sexual geographies in digital and physical registers. On the one hand, these platforms operate as spatialized tools which put bodies in motion in the interest of hooking up. They function as digital compasses that allow for orientation of sexual desires in physical spaces. On the other hand, these platforms also assemble localized online places for flirtation, imagination, visibility, and appreciation, which interlink bodies with the visual pleasures and vulnerabilities of seeing and being seen. We approach questions of locatedness and place-making both through the regional and linguistic boundaries within which these platforms operate, as well as through our participants’ sense of comfort and investment in the local as a space of sexual play. As sexual content and communication are increasingly pushed out of large, U.S.-owned social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr, local and (to some extent) independent platforms where sexual expression is less regulated offer an interesting counterweight.

The platform beat: Algorithmic watchdogs in the disinformation age

2021 ◽  
pp. 026732312110283
Author(s):  
Philip M Napoli
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
Complex Dynamics ◽  
Conflicts Of Interest ◽  
Public Trust ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Social Media Platforms

As digital platforms have come to play a central role in the news and information ecosystem, a new realm of watchdog journalism has emerged – the platform beat. Journalists on the platform beat report on the operation, use and misuse of social media platforms and search engines. The platform beat can serve as an important mechanism for increasing the accountability of digital platforms, in ways that can affect public trust in the platforms, but that can also, hopefully, lead to the development of stronger, more reliable, and ultimately more trustworthy, platforms. However, there are a number of tensions, vulnerabilities and potential conflicts of interest that characterize the platform beat. This article explores these complex dynamics of the platform beat in an effort assess the capacity of those on the platform beat to enhance the accountability and trustworthiness of digital platforms.

Engaging Destination Stakeholders in the Digital Era: The Best Practice of Italian Regional DMOs

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (3) ◽  
pp. 349-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mariapina Trunfio ◽  
Maria Della Lucia
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Stakeholder Engagement ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Destination Marketing ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Quantitative And Qualitative Research ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Media Index

This article examines the underinvestigated topic of how destination marketing organizations (DMOs) engage stakeholders in destination management and marketing through leverage on off-line tools, official destination websites, and social media platforms. Building on a significant body of literature and advances in quantitative and qualitative research, we provide three methodological tools: two scales assessing DMO stakeholder engagement off-line and online and a social media index measuring tourist engagement. Our results confirm that in Italy regional DMOs are capitalizing on the digital platforms and off-line participatory tools to enhance stakeholder engagement in destinations’ decision making. Theoretical and managerial implications for destination management in the digital era are suggested.

scholarly journals Making fans go "GAGA": intimacy, identity and brand building through Twitter

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura D’angelo
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Brand Management ◽  
Music Industry ◽  
Social Medium ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Fan Identification ◽  
Brand Building ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
Lady Gaga

While the use of digital platforms has harmed some aspects of the music industry, it has also created new opportunities for artists to prosper in terms of marketing, branding, communication and to ultimately become cultural entrepreneurs. Twitter in particular is a social networking service (SNS) that is ideal for studying fan celebrity interactions, as it is a safe space for celebrities to market, brand and communicate with fans through strategic discourse in an informal environment. With SNS such as Twitter, fans now have the opportunity to build seemingly intimate relationships with celebrities, becoming cocreators of content. Widely acknowledged for her unparalleled relationships and interactions with fans on Twitter, singer Lady Gaga, has achieved success and long term viability amidst digitalization through her strategic use of online platforms to not only promote and strengthen her brand, but to build intimate relationships with her fans. Lady Gaga exemplifies how the digitalization of the music industry and growth of online platforms drive artists to take on new roles as entrepreneurs marketers and as conversationalists with fans. As such, this paper presents a review of the extant literature of studies that have explored the connection between celebrity brand building and representation on social media and how fan identification, interaction and intimacy are forged via social media discourse. This is followed by a qualitative discourse analysis of 904 tweets and retweets collected from Lady Gaga’s Twitter account from May 31st, 2015 until April 31st, 2016. This analysis serves to develop an understanding of how language is being used actively, persuasively and to isolate patterns in Lady Gaga’s Twitter discourse. This includes key terms, phrases and overall frequency of these. In analyzing how Lady Gaga uses strategic discourse on Twitter, we can build a greater understanding of how this social medium is used to build intimacy with fans. From this knowledge, both artists and marketers can emulate this model for effective brand management on social media, particularly on Twitter.

Fashioning Multiplatform Masculinities

2017 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 645-664 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jimmy Draper ◽  
Andrea M. McDonnell
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Textual Analysis ◽  
Gender And Sexuality ◽  
Personal Style ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Gay Male ◽  
Representational Practices ◽  
Multiple Audiences ◽  
Technological Affordances ◽  
Men And Masculinity

Scholarly interest in the potential of personal style blogging to intervene in fashion media’s gendered norms has focused on women and femininity. To assess the implications for men and masculinity, this article examines gay male bloggers’ self-representational practices. Through interviews and textual analysis, we find their uses of different digital platforms reproduce and confront the heteronormativity of men’s fashion media in ways that speak to their status as bloggers in the industry. Specifically, their desire to demonstrate recognizable forms of fashion expertise keeps their blogs disciplined by industry norms of masculinity even as the need to self-brand encourages queer self-expression across other social media. We thus argue the ways in which bloggers embrace platforms’ technological affordances to engage multiple audiences are central to theorizing how their labor produces different discourses and depictions of masculinity. This builds on arguments made by gender and sexuality scholars to explain the significance of gay men’s fashion.

Corruption in the Public Eye

2014 ◽  
pp. 258-272
Author(s):  
Elitza Katzarova
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
News Coverage ◽  
Negotiation Strategy ◽  
The Public ◽  
First Case ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Analytical Tools

What role is there for publicity in the global anti-corruption debate? This chapter introduces the concepts of “transparency” and “publicity” as analytical tools that account for differentiated channels through which the availability of information can induce social change. Two case studies provide insights into the role of traditional media in comparison to new social media. The first case analyzes the role of Western news coverage during the negotiations of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention in the mid-1990s and the threat of publicity as a negotiation strategy. The second case investigates the role of social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube in the success of the anti-corruption strike carried out by Indian social activist Anna Hazare in 2011. By introducing and further applying the conceptual toolkit of “transparency” and “publicity” to both cases, this chapter argues that transparency requires publicity or in the case of the OECD negotiations—the threat of publicity—in order for the anti-corruption campaign to be successful. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the ramifications for transparency and publicity as tools for social change.

Paradigm Shift for the Future

2021 ◽  
pp. 173-201
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Political Influence ◽  
Political Events ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Way

Through case studies of incidents around the world where the social media platforms have been used and abused for ulterior purposes, Chapter 6 highlights the lessons that can be learned. For good or for ill, the author elaborates on the way social media has been used as an arbiter to inflict various forms of political influence and how we may have become desensitized due to the popularity of the social media platforms themselves. A searching view is provided that there is now a propensity by foreign states to use social media to influence the user base of sovereign countries during key political events. This type of activity now justifies a paradigm shift in relation to our perception and utilization of computerized devices for the future.

Social Media Analytics

2022 ◽  
pp. 385-410
Author(s):  
Časlav Kalinić ◽  
Miroslav D. Vujičić
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Cultural Tourism ◽  
Social Media Analytics ◽  
Online Platforms ◽  
New Information ◽  
People Participation ◽  
Management And Development ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Tourism Destinations

The rise of social media allowed greater people participation online. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or TikTok enable visitors to share their thoughts, opinions, photos, locations. All those interactions create a vast amount of data. Social media analytics, as a way of application of big data, can provide excellent insights and create new information for stakeholders involved in the management and development of cultural tourism destinations. This chapter advocates for the employment of the big data concept through social media analytics that can contribute to the management of visitors in cultural tourism destinations. In this chapter, the authors highlight the principles of big data and review the most influential social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok. On that basis, they disclose opportunities for the management and marketing of cultural tourism destinations.

Is Anybody Out There?

2021 ◽  
pp. 989-1003
Author(s):  
Junior Tidal
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
York City ◽  
Use Case ◽  
Media Impact ◽  
City College ◽  
College Of Technology ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Library Marketing

This chapter will explore how social media assessment is used for library marketing. It will build upon existing literature on how other libraries quantify social media impact in promoting their services. This includes methods on how libraries can gather native application statistics from popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. An exploration into web analytics will also be explored as evidence of social media impact. The chapter will use case-studies of the Ursula C. Schwerin Library of the New York City College of Technology (City Tech), CUNY, and how social media platforms are used to advertise library events and disseminate news.

scholarly journals Defending the media from itself: Reforming media regulations to minimise the impact of misinformation

European View ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (2) ◽  
pp. 210-219
Author(s):  
Juha-Pekka Nurvala ◽  
Amelia Buckell
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Search Engines ◽  
Behavioural Changes ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

This article argues that media regulations on correcting incorrect articles are in dire need of reform due to technological and behavioural changes. By using case studies from the UK, the authors demonstrate the huge difference between the number of people who were reached by the original article before the Independent Press Standards Organisation (the regulator in the UK) ruled it incorrect and the number reached by the correction or corrected article. The authors argue that media regulations must be reformed to ensure that corrections reach the same people as the original incorrect article to avoid misinformation impacting peoples’ decision-making, and that reforms must include social media platforms and search engines.

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